Second Chances (Realign Our Fates)
by annavale23
Summary: "It all started with a gun." Phil Coulson has one night to unravel the mystery behind the two dead bodies on the floor, the two brothers who claim that they had nothing to do with their deaths, and the other brother who's holding the gun. [A very AU one-shot featuring a younger Grant and Phil]. (Contains some dark themes).


**Small heads up, the line breaks are going to seem _so_ random throughout this all.**

 **Anyway, hello and welcome to my new one-shot only AU fic. Yep, this is 8,000+ words on one fic in one burst - my longest singular chapter to date! This idea has been in my head for a year now, but every time I tried to write it as a full length fic, something happened. Like I accidentally deleted six long chapters at the start of having this idea, and other times, it's gone too weird. So instead, I've written it as a one-shot! Yay!**

 **This whole thing may seem a little inconsistent in sections, since most of it was written in the dead of the night before I went to sleep. To be honest, this whole thing is as experimental AF.**

 **[To my _Anchor_ readers: look for the next chapter to that later this week, in approximately three days].**

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 **IMPORTANT:** **Trigger Warnings: Mentions of Child Abuse, Violent Death and Alcoholism.**

(not too sure if the last trigger really need to be mentioned, but I'm being cautious)

* * *

 _ **Character Notes:**_ In this fic, I'm saying that Christian's middle name is Maynard, so Grant nicknames him 'May'. Just to clear up any confusion in advance.

Also, I made Thomas a little younger than I usually would. If anything seems out of character with him, I'm sorry! I haven't been around a six year old in 9 years, so I'm a little rusty on how they act.

Small names thing: Valerie is my name for Grant's mother, and Christian Senior is my name for his father. I figured that he might have called his first son after him.

 **Enjoy, and please leave a review come end!**

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 **Second Chances (Realign Our Fates)**

* * *

It starts with a gun.

It lies there, among the shattered pieces of the cabinet. He doesn't know why his father leaves the rifle in a glass cabinet, but here it is, covered in glass fragments.

He's hiding underneath the table, after his mother backhanded him across the face. He landed here, so instinctively he scrambled underneath the ornate dining room table, clutching his knees to his chest. He's a little too big, but he keeps himself crouched up, his eyes wide as he sees his mother scream.

"Mommy!" Thomas yells, his big blue eyes welling with tears. "Mommy, stop screaming at Daddy!"

He can see May crouched on the other side of the room.

"Christian, help!" Thomas turns to May, who stays put, closing his eyes.

"Why can't you see what you're doing to us?" His mother screams at his father. "You're going to tear us apart with all this work! That's all you do. Work, work, work."

"I have to work, Valerie!" His father yells back. "I have to serve the people."

"And what about your family?" His mother shouts back.

"What, the family you destroyed? The family who you mostly ignore, only spoiling that idiot!" His father points at Thomas. "I should have left him to drown in that damn well!"

"It's your fault that he was in that well." His mother insists. "Take responsibility for our family!"

His eyes stare at the gun lying on the floor. Thomas starts crying loudly. His father glares at him.

"You've ruined our family, Valerie. Everything that happens now, it's on your head, you hear me?" His father shakes his head, his eyes poisonous.

Hits rain down from the sky. Screams echo through his ears, and Thomas hits the floor, blood filling his mouth.

"How could you-!" His mother struggles against his father's grip. He tosses her across the room, her body crumpling like a fragile flower. His father grabs Thomas by the throat, his fingers closing around his throat.

When May stays still, his eyes squeezed tightly closed, he reacts.

His fingers close around the rifle on the floor and he pulls himself out of his hiding place, aiming the gun clumsily at his father.

His father's bloodshot eyes stare back at him, holding Thomas up easily.

He stares back, trembling like a leaf.

"What? Are you going to shoot me now?" His father sneers. "Go ahead, you weakling. If you can."

He shakes. Thomas makes a strangled noise in his throat, his skin going purple slowly. May keeps himself still, not moving, curling himself in on himself.

Valerie weeps on the floor.

"Look what you're doing to us." She makes gulping noises as she grovels around, her hair smeared across her tearstained face.

"Shoot me then." His father keeps challenging him. Thomas gurgles again, his eye twitching towards him. As usual, Thomas needs to be saved. And as usual, Thomas wants him to help him. Thomas wants his older brother to take the fall.

He swallows, adjusting his grip on the rifle. Sweat clings to him like a second skin.

"Shoot me you fucking coward-" His father's words are cut off by a single bang, which is followed by a few more.

The rifle hits into the boy's shoulder as he keeps pressing down on the trigger, until all that can be heard in the room are empty clicks.

His mother is frozen, her hands tangled in her hair.

May finally opens his eyes, staring in shock.

Thomas drops to the floor, scrambling away quickly, blood flecked in his golden hair.

His father's eyes are still moving around in his eye sockets even as his knees give way. His head hits the floor with a resolute noise that echoes like the gunshots a few seconds previous.

The boy lowers the gun, panting for breath as sweat causes his shirt to stick to him. Meanwhile, his father's blood spills out on the floor.

"What… What did you _do?"_ May speaks finally, a hoarse whisper.

"I did what I had to." He replies. For the first time in his entire life, Grant Douglas Ward is in control, and it makes him feel _alive_.

* * *

"What did you do?" His mother launches into life suddenly, her voice a screech. "What did you do, you idiot!" She stumbles to her husband's body, chucking herself over him. "Oh, honey!" She wails. "Your stupid son! He killed you!" She sobs into his bloody chest, and Grant can do nothing but stare. His mother's emotions are laid out for all the Ward siblings to see, and it's a sight that imprints himself on the back on his eyelids.

Then his mother raises her face, blood streaked all over it, her eyes narrowed. Dread and fear fill Grant's heart.

"How could you kill him?" She howls at Grant, who takes a few steps back, startled by his mother's behaviour. "How could you kill your own _father_?"

Her body crawls towards him, and Grant hits into the wall, his eyes wide with fear. Thomas stays wheezing on the floor; May is ignoring them all again. Grant is on his own.

So when his mother claws at him, he reacts again, smashing the gun into her face. She screams in agony, and wraps her hands around his throat, digging her nails in. She draws blood easily as her voice tortures his ears.

Grant screams, the sound ripping his throat to shreds. Relying on pure, animalistic instinct, he smashes the gun butt into her face again, over and over and over and over and over, until Grant no longer has a voice, and all he sees is red, red staining every corner of his vision.

* * *

When the police come, Grant's hands are covered in blood. His mother lies on the floor, her eyes still, her face covered in dark, mottled bruises that distort her face. His father lies on her back too, blood congealing on his shirt, skin and the floor. His eyes are still flown wide open, blood sticking to his eyelashes like raindrops.

He's still frozen against the wall, his knees up, his hands twisted around the bloodstained rifle. He can barely feel his hands anymore, but he's sure they've got to be hurting from being in that position for so long.

"It was Grant! He flipped out, killed both of them!" May is dobbing him in to the police with ease. "He's crazy! Keep him away from us." Now he's concerned about Thomas, clutching the youngster to his hip. As usual, May's playing to what he thinks

A man walks over to Grant. He's wearing a suit. He crouches down in front of him, and Grant flinches when he reaches out to touch his knee.

"Grant Ward?" The man asks. Grant raises his eyes to the man's, who looks at him kindly. He doesn't trust that kindness. It's always fake in the end. "I'm Phil. Phil Coulson."

Grant stays silent. It's not a choice: he's not too sure that he can speak anymore, not after his screaming earlier.

"I'm not with the police, Grant." Phil tells him softly. "I was called out because this is an unusual case."

Grant stares back at the rifle in his hands, with his mother's blood coating one end. He can still remember what sounds she made, those gargling squishing noises as he hit it into her face, never stopping. He's pretty sure that those sounds will haunt him to his last dying moment.

"Your brother tells us that you did something." Phil continues. "That you…" He hesitates. "Killed your parents. Is this true?"

Grant doesn't make a noise.

"Grant, I need you to tell me what happened here." Grant hates these people. The ones who pretend to care, to find out the truth. Like when Thomas went to school showing the bruises caused by May, and to protect them all, Grant took the fall. That's what his job as the middle child was. He was May's punching bag and Thomas's fall guy.

"Okay." Phil sighs. "Then can you give me the gun, Grant?"

Grant looks towards May and Thomas, who are being led away by a police officer. May sneers at him from a distance before his brothers leave the room, leaving him alone with the bodies, Phil and the other suits.

"Phil." A woman calls to the man in front of him. Phil glances around at her. "Are you done? The police aren't happy with our involvement. We'll have to go."

"One moment." Phil calls back before turning to him. "Grant, your brothers are being taken into protective custody. Your brother Christian, he said that you were unsafe to be around when he called the cops."

 _So that's why they came._ Grant muses silently. His hands are stiff; his throat is numb. He's not even too sure if he's breathing anymore. Maybe he's not even alive; maybe this is a dream. A nightmare where he turned into the real monster in the dark.

"I'm going to take you with me now." Phil tells him. "Is that okay?"

Silence echoes around the room. Grant winces, not liking the absence of noise. The woman from earlier strides over. She's short, and oriental. His father would have made a racist comment about her before probably taking her away on one of his overnight trips that hide nothing. Everyone knew what he was really doing in those hotel rooms.

"Phil." She says simply.

"I want the boy, Melinda. There's more here than the others are letting on." Phil responds immediately. "Why else would he just lash out like this?"

"Then grab him now, otherwise we'll leave him to the law." She says, flipping her hair over a shoulder. "We don't have time for this. Skye hates it when she has to stay overnight at Natasha's."

"She's already staying overnight – it's 10 pm, Melinda." Phil points out before returning his eyes back to Grant. "This is your only choice now, Grant." He tells Grant urgently. "Either you come with us now, or we can't help you anymore."

 _No-one can help me anymore._ Grant thinks. Phil waits, a few seconds ticking on by.

Slowly, Grant unwraps his fingers from the rifle, stiffness in his joints. Phil widens his eyes, having not actually expected the boy to react. Grant gingerly places the gun on the floor, shivering slightly.

"Come on." Phil encourages the boy to his feet. Grant gets up unsteadily, feeling half underwater. The woman stoops down to pick up the gun as Phil places a hand against Grant's back, pushing him gently forward. He flinches from the touch, and Phil seems to get the message, dropping his hand back away.

Grant spaces out as they lead him out of his house, guiding him into a black car. It's occurred to him that he has no idea who these people are, and what they could want with someone like him, but he doesn't care. Whatever they do to him, he deserves it. He's a murderer, after all.

Murderer. That word, so cold, so unforgiving. It stings him, but Grant can't hide from the term. That's what he did. He shot his father; he beat his mother. He killed them.

The two people in the front of the car don't speak to him. Grant's thankful for that, because it allows him to simply retreat inside his own head. Outside, it's too scary to think about. His reality is too real. So he stays in the dark of his head, where he's (relatively) safer.

* * *

He and Phil are dropped off at a house, a shadow in the dark. The woman drives away, the wheels crunching on the gravel.

"This is my house, Grant." Phil tells him carefully. "You'll be staying here for a bit, if that's okay?"

Grant stares back at Phil, his mouth still firmly shut. Phil sighs.

"Come on. Let's get you washed up now."

Inside the house, Grant silently takes off his shoes, leaving them at the entranceway. Phil takes him up the stairs and shows him to a bathroom, where he starts running a tap.

"I think I have some clothes that might fit you." Phil chatters on down Grant's ear. Grant doesn't question why Phil might have boy's clothes in his house, remaining locked in the cage of his silence.

He washes his hands when Phil tells him to, scrubbing the blood away from his now bruised hands. They wash his neck clean of blood before Phil places some Band-Aids over the small gauges caused by his mother's nails. Phil gets him the shirt and jeans that he somehow has, which are slightly too big for Grant but he puts them on anyway.

Downstairs, the night is endless, but Phil decides that what Grant needs is some cereal. The boy looks skinny enough as it is, and Phil needs to start building up a rapport with him. And how better to do that than with food?

Grant stares at the food, and his stomach rolls.

"Okay, Grant." Phil says briskly, pulling out a notepad with a pen. He slides them over to Grant, who gives them a suspicious look. "You're not talking to me, so I thought you might be able to write it down instead." Phil tries for a smile, which is not returned by Grant. Still, he persists. "Can you tell me how old you are?"

Nothing moves. Phil waits patiently, and slowly, as he hoped, Grant picks up the pen and pulls the notepad closer to him. He writes out two numbers before sliding the notepad back to Coulson.

"You're eleven?" Phil reads, smiling again. Grant's dead eyes stare back. He pushes the pad back to Grant. "What do you like to eat, Grant?" It hasn't gone unnoticed that the preteen hasn't touched the cereal, either due to shock or dislike.

Grant views him with suspicion.

"It's not a trick question, Grant." Phil says softly. He has no idea what really went down in that house, but it wasn't by chance that he was called to the scene. Phil's been watching the Wards for quite some time now.

Still, Grant hesitates. But after a few moments, he finally starts to write something down on the paper. But when Phil reads it, it's not his favourite food. It's a question.

 _What's going to happen to May and Thomas?_ The question reads. Phil frowns.

"May?" He questions. Grant grabs the pad back and hastily writes, _Christian._ "Oh, okay." Phil nods. May must be Christian's nickname.

Grant taps the pen to his question again.

"Your brothers are going to be looked after by a different colleague of mine, a man called John Garrett." Phil starts. "They'll be fine, don't worry."

There's a dark look in the boy's eyes. He writes something else on the paper.

 _What's going to happen to me?_ It reads.

"At the moment, all you need to do is tell me what really happened back there." Phil leans closer. Grant's chair screeches against the floor as he pushes himself away from the table.

 _Don't_ _come near me._ Grant writes next, underlining 'don't' firmly.

"Okay, okay." Phil leans back, moving slowly, not wanting to startle the boy. "I'll stay over here." It's clear that the boy's easily spooked, like a wild horse. Grant nods, tapping his question again. _What's going to happen to me?_

"I just need you to tell me what went on there." Phil repeats, making sure to keep his distance. "But there's no pressure. Take your time if you need to."

 _I'm a murderer._ Grant writes in neat letters underneath his questions. Phil blinks, swallowing his shock.

"You killed your parents?" He asks, shocked despite what Grant's brothers said. Grant nods, his eyes guarded. Phil wonders if this is a test. How will this nice man (Phil) react to this cruel fact? That this boy (Grant) is a murderer?

 _Why are you talking to me?_ Grant writes his next question.

"Well, I've been quite interested in your family for a while now." Phil can't figure out how not to sound creepy when saying this.

 _Who do you work for?_ The next question is written in a heavier font.

"An organisation that works independently from the police." Phil says truthfully. He doesn't plan on divulging any more information other than that though. Fury would have his head.

 _What do you want with me?_

"The truth." Phil doesn't skip a beat as he folds his arms over his chest. Grant raises an eyebrow and points to the sentence saying ' _I'm a murderer_ ', before writing, _There's your truth._

"I want the real truth, Grant." Phil answers. "No-one just kills their parents for no reason. There's always motive, always something that pushes them."

 _Maybe I'm insane._ Grant suggests. _Maybe I'll kill you too._

"If you do that, you'll lose the only person in your corner." Phil counters. "Grant, I want to help you. I want to know what happened, so I can see how to help you better."

 _No-one's in my corner._ Grant writes next. Phil pauses. Those words are so shocking against the white paper. What has to happen in someone's head to make them believe that the whole world is against them?

"Is there any other questions you'd like to ask me?" Phil regains his composure a few moments later.

 _Will May and Thomas be okay with your friend?_ Grant is hesitant to write his question.

"Garrett is a great person." Phil nods. "They'll be safe, don't worry."

 _Will I go to jail?_ The next question is stark.

"No." Phil shakes his head. "You're too young: you'll go to juvenile court instead."

 _So if I killed my parents in cold blood, I'll go to jail?_ Phil picks up on a few words in Grant's next question. _If_. _I'll_. Not _since_. The difference makes it all to Phil. Because that means that Grant might not have simply 'flipped out', to quote the oldest Ward brother, and instead, he might have been provoked. And that is all Phil needs to give him the strength to continue. You can always safe someone if you get to them early enough.

"You might." Phil says simply to answer Grant's question. "And that's why I need to know the whole truth. So I know how to save you."

 _You want to save me?_ Grant's eyebrows shoot up before suspicion settles anew on the young boy's face. _I don't need to be saved._

Phil thinks the contrary, considering tonight, Grant Ward murdered his parents for reasons still unknown.

* * *

Phil gets Grant to ask him a few more questions, which all revolve around what's going to happen now, until Phil notices the boy's eyelids dropping down. A quick glance at the clock reveals the time to be an hour past midnight, and Phil berates himself for not thinking about the time.

"Okay, let's get you to bed." Phil says, and Grant's previously sleepy eyes fly wide open. "You need to sleep, Grant." Phil tells him. The boy shakes his head firmly.

After trying to convince Grant to go to bed for nearly half an hour, Phil instead convinces him to come sit on the sofa with him in the living room. Grant curls himself up on one end of the long couch, the end closest to the door, Phil notices. Phil sits on the opposite end, placing the notepad in between them.

Phil turns on the TV to some teleshopping channel, the sound low in the background. The light from the screen is the only light in the room.

Grant stays closed in on himself even as Phil pretends to watch the TV. He has no idea who this man is, other than he's one of _those_ people, as his father would say. The fakes. The ones who want to find out the family's secrets to bring them down. His father always told him to shut up around those people. So Grant will do one thing right. He'll keep quiet.

The pen clutched in his hand starts to dig into his flesh. Grant relishes the pressure, as it helps him focus his cloudy mind. He has to be careful around this Phil man. He can't slip up.

Time passes. Phil glances over to Grant, and nearly chokes in shock.

"Grant, you're bleeding!" He exclaims, getting to his feet. Grant immediately flinches away from his touch, and Phil pauses. Grant glances down, after shooting Phil a warning look, and sees that indeed, he's bleeding. Apparently, the pen dug in too far, and now there's blood staining his skin. He recoils from the redness, fractures coming back to him of his mother's face, his father's body.

Phil guides the preteen back to the bathroom, where he removes the pen from Grant's grip finally, washing the wound out quickly. Grant winces at the pain as Phil determines that a bandage should keep it okay, quickly wrapping one around his arm.

It's here that Phil notices something. The ghostly imprints of other scars. Thin lines that dot across Grant's arm, and finally something clicks in his head. The flinching, the scars… something sinister happened in that house. Something that should never happen to any child.

Grant snatches his arm out of Phil's grasp.

* * *

Phil determines that the incident was an accident, so Grant didn't purposely try to gouge his arm with a pen. Still, Phil keeps a close eye on the boy as they return to the living room, turning the TV off and the lights on.

"Okay, Grant." Phil returns to his seat, passing him the pad of paper again. "I want you to do something for me. I want you to tell me how you feel about each member of your family."

Grant makes no move to obey.

"It's not a trick, Grant." Phil assures him. "I simply want to know how you feel. If that's okay?"

Slowly, Grant shakes his head, his eyes avoiding Phil's. So it's not okay, Phil gathers.

"Fine, we don't have to do that." He concedes. This isn't his area of expertise, to be honest: Melinda would be better at this. But Phil took this challenge on, and he'll be damned if he's going to fail before he's even begun.

"Why do you call Christian 'May'?" Phil starts there. It seems simple enough: determine which family members he likes, and which ones he doesn't. Which ones that might be the root of the flinching and the scars.

Phil is no stranger to the dark underbelly of parenting. He's experienced it once: a boyfriend of his mother's. He didn't stay around long, not after he hit out at Phil, but maybe in Grant's case, no-one was there to stop it.

 _Maynard is his middle name._ Grant writes after a long while. _May is short for that._

"Do you like Christian, Grant?" Phil asks next. Grant hesitates for a moment too long before nodding slowly. Phil knows then that he's lying.

"Thomas, then. Your younger brother." Phil doesn't miss the tightening of Grant's jaw when his younger brother is mentioned. "Are you two close?"

 _You're tricking me._ Grant writes instead of an answer. Phil sighs.

"Technically, yes, I'm tricking you." Phil admits. "You said that you didn't want to talk about your relationships with all of your family, and I said that was okay. I'm sorry."

Surprise flickers across Grant's face. He of course notices it.

"So I'll stop." Phil goes on to say. "No more questions about them."

Phil gets up to make himself a sandwich, with Grant trailing behind him like a lost puppy. Phil talks about what he's doing, injecting random gossip among it. Perhaps the youngster needs a rest from all this questioning. At eleven, he's not exactly old. Phil decides to wait until later instead, choosing to let Grant get used to the surroundings.

"See, a friend of mine taught me how to make this sandwich." He confides in Grant. "Now, he and I can't really hang out like we used to: he's the boss of my organisation, so he doesn't get much free time."

Grant leans against the fridge. He seems intrigued enough by Phil's chatter, so he continues.

"His name's Nick. Big guy, which an eyepatch on one eye." Phil says. "My friend's daughter Skye – the woman we saw earlier, she's this friend – calls him a pirate. He pretends to hate it, but Nick loves it when Skye calls him that. He dotes on her a lot."

Phil butters his bread with peanut butter, laying the spread on thick. He's already asked Grant if he wanted a sandwich, only to be met with a shake of the head.

"Skye's nine, so she's a little younger than you." He continues. "She's so energetic though. Clever, too. Skye can do anything she puts her mind to." Fondly, Phil thinks back to just the other week, when Skye hacked into Nick's computer and changed his home screen and that of every SHIELD operative to a picture of a 'Lol Cat'. Personally, Phil doesn't get why these cats are so funny. They have terrible spelling, which he hates: Phil's a bit of a stickler for grammar.

Grant writes something on the pad of paper he brought over, turning it to show Phil.

 _Thomas is six._ It reads. Phil nods.

"Melinda's had Skye since she was six." At Grant's confused look, Phil quickly explains. "Skye's adopted, you see, like Melinda's older daughter Natasha."

Grant nods slowly.

"Natasha's 14." Phil says. "She's getting so old now." His tone turns wistful.

The boy scribbles something else down on the paper, showing Phil again.

 _Do you have any kids?_ The question asks.

"Me? No, I live alone." Phil informs Grant, who writes down his next question: _Do you want kids?_

"Once I thought I might." He admits. "I was with this woman, Audrey – she was beautiful. She played the harp, and that's how we met, at one of her concerts. But I digress."

Grant listens intently. Phil's chatter is oddly comforting, and he's surprisingly enjoying the conversation. It's nice and simply _normal_.

"So anyway, I thought that we could settle down, marry, maybe have kids someday…" Phil shakes his head, swallowing. "But my job, it, err, it interfered in our relationship. The other month Audrey told me she needed some space, so I'm not too sure how we're proceeding now."

 _My father cheated on my mother all the time._ Grant writes without thinking, showing it to Phil before he realises his mistake. Like with everything else, the cheating is something he's never meant to ever mention to strangers. It shows bad character, his father used to tell him. A family should be unified, not broken. Grant often wonders why he cheated then, if a family wasn't meant to be torn apart at the seams.

"Oh?" Phil looks up from cutting his sandwich into two. Grant waits for his response, berating himself for his slip up. Just like his father was fond of telling him, he's a disappointment if he's already giving family secrets away to any stranger who talks.

"Did your mother know about it?" Phil asks, and Grant pauses before shrugging, writing something else down on the paper.

 _She might have. She never talked about it though._ Grant doesn't think that's too big of a secret to give up, especially since he's already spilled the beans on the whole cheating thing. But if he can distract Phil with this stuff, all the other secrets will stay buried, just like they should be.

"Was she upset about it, do you think?" Phil's tone is careful. Grant thinks before writing down his answer.

 _She got upset about him working all the time._ He writes. _Maybe because half the time he was 'working', he was really cheating on her._

"How did your mother cope then?" Phil's sandwich lays abandoned on the marble kitchen top surface.

 _She drank._ Grant winces as he realises that, yet again, another secret has been revealed. He really is a stupid idiot, trusting the first person to offer him a kind smile. May would never slip up like this, he knows, because May's the perfect son. The first born, the son that knows exactly what to say and do to earn respect. He's the one that will grow up to succeed his father in the senate. Grant's just the stupid one who needs to learn to hold his tongue.

Phil pauses, knowing he has to tread carefully here. A drinking mother; a cheating father? There was definitely unrest in that house, and Phil's determined to find out why. What happened to lead to the deaths of Valerie and Christian senior Ward at the hands of their eleven year old son?

"You know, my father died when I was young." Phil starts conversationally, moving to clean up the mess he made while making himself a sandwich, which he still hasn't eaten. "So my mother dated a few different guys after that. Most of them were fine, except for this one." One way to get through to Grant is by sharing a story personal to him. "He drank a little bit too much." Phil forces the dark memories away. "One day, I saw some bruises on my mother's wrists. She said she slipped, but they looked suspicious to me, as did the next few I saw over the next weeks."

Grant stiffens, his eyes fixes on a place far away.

"One day, he lashed out at me. I came home from school, he was drunk, and somehow I pissed him off. I'm not even too sure how I upset him, but he got very angry."

Grant is completely still.

"He yelled at me, calling me a waste of space. But this wasn't the first time he'd attacked me verbally, so I just took it at first. When he mentioned my father, though, I snapped, and yelled back. He punched me in the face for my cheek, and when I was on the floor, he kicked me in the stomach and ribs until my mother came in." Phil continues, stealing glances at Grant out of the corner of his eye. "She called the cops on him, and we never saw him again. He hurting _her_ was one thing, but as soon as his hands touched _me_ , her eyes were opened suddenly."

 _My mother didn't ever lay a hand on me!_ Grant's words are written angrily, the pen boring deep into the paper.

"Grant, I never said she did." Phil says calmly, his suspicions almost confirmed. Grant freezes. "You did."

 _You tricked me._ Grant points back up to the words he wrote a while back.

"I merely shared a story from my past." Phil turns to look at the kid. "Grant, you can trust me. I'm not going to do anything with anything you tell me unless you want me to."

Grant shakes his head firmly.

 _You tricked me!_ He adds the exclamation mark.

"Grant, you know you can trust me." Phi repeats, crouching down in front of him, gazing up at the boy. Grant refuses to meet Phil's eyes.

"You can tell me anything." Phil urges. "I can help you."

 _I'm weak._ Grant writes slowly, reluctantly showing Phil the words.

"Why do you think that, Grant?" Phil frowns. Still moving reluctantly, Grant continues to write in that neat handwriting of his.

 _I'm not meant to talk about her drinking._ He reads. _That implies that our family isn't perfect, and that's what people need to think._

"Why do they need to think you're perfect?" Phil's eyes dart around the boy's face.

 _Because the Wards need to be the ideal._ Grant writes. _So people keep my father in power. If his family's wrong, no-one will trust him, so we have to present ourselves in the best image possible._ Maybe Phil will understand, Grant reasons. He seems like a reasonable person, so of course he'd understand why they had to be perfect in the eyes of the media.

In reality, Phil is horrified. What secrets were held behind those walls?

"Did your mother ever do anything to you when she was drunk?" Phil asks, his tone as careful as a man walking through a field of stinging nettles. He doesn't want to destroy this small opening he's created.

 _My mother loved Thomas more than May and I._ It amazes Phil how quickly Grant's slipped into past tense when talking about the woman he beat to death only a few hours ago. But as Phil thought, there are more and more layers to the intricate puzzle that is the Ward family.

 _Thomas was her golden boy. May was the successful one._ Grant continues to spill out the words across the white paper.

"And who were you?"

 _I was the inconvenience._ Grant seems to be in his element now, as the secrets continue to keep pouring out. He can't stop the flow; it's like his hand is moving without his permission. _She hated me. She didn't want me around._

"Grant, I need you to tell me if she even yelled at you too much." Phil's tone is urgent. "Can you do that?"

A hesitation stops Grant's writing. Is it really right for him to be telling Phil all of this? He remembers what his father, what his mother, what May have told him over the years: Wards stick together. Wards keep each other's secrets. Wards are loyal only to each other, and Wards _never_ betray each other.

But Grant murdered his parents. He's not exactly sticking to those rules anymore. He stopped being a true Ward the moment his fingers closed around the gun, all for that boy Thomas.

 _Thomas was the golden boy in her eyes._ He walks to the table, writing quickly. Phil starts to read over his shoulder, following the words as they curve onto the page, leaving their permanent imprints upon the sheet. _He could do no wrong. May hated that. He remembered a time where she used to at least pretend to care for him, and he was jealous when he saw the real love she showed Thomas._

The clock ticks past three am. Somehow, two hours have passed since Phil last glanced at the clock. He swallows a yawn, but Grant shows no sign of stopping as he writes like a possessed mad man.

 _May tried to get her love for a bit, but when it didn't work, he got angry at Thomas. But he wasn't stupid. May knew she would go crazy at him if he hurt Thomas. So…_ Grant takes a deep breath. Maybe this time it will be different. Maybe this time, someone will actually believe him. _So he made_ _me_ _hurt him instead._

"What?" Phil is shocked, his mouth suddenly dry. "Grant, what do you mean?"

Grant gives him an oddly hopeful look. He scribbles something else down on the paper. _You believe me?_ Those three words nearly finish Phil off right then. 'You believe me'. How many times had Grant tried to tell someone this story? How many times had he been dismissed? How had his brother managed to get away with this for so long?

"I believe you, Grant." Phil whispers, his eyes wide. "I believe you."

 _At first, it was small. Take away his favourite toy, then twist his arm, then it turned to more violent things._ Like a river finally freed from a damn, Grant can't stop his words. He needs to get this out to the only person to ever believe him in his life.

 _It never stopped, no matter what May promised._ He continues. _I started to rebel against May, preferring to take the hit instead of dishing it to Thomas._

Phil feels sick right to his stomach.

 _That's when Thomas figured it out. That I'd protect him against May, against our father. So he used it to his advantage._ Grant closes his eyes briefly. _He'd deliberately piss them off, and let me take the fall for him._

Phil can hardly believe that a six year old was capable of all this. Figuring out that Grant would save him is easy, but then turning him into some sort of game? Simply, the Ward family was diabolical. No wonder the Ward parents ended up dead. Phil doesn't want to say it, but perhaps they deserved it.

"Who else did you try to tell?" Phil asks next. Grant shrugs.

 _My parents at first. Then I hinted it to a teacher at school, and then to my grandmother._ He writes slowly. _My parents didn't believe that May would make me do it all. The teacher disappeared soon afterwards, and we stopped seeing my grandmother after that, and she died a few months later anyway._

"Well, I'm not going anywhere, Grant." Phil promises, going to touch the boy's shoulder only to have him flinch away from the touch. "Sorry." Phil apologises, and Grant stares at him. An apology?

"All you need to tell me is why you killed your parents." Phil says quietly. "And then I can help you."

Grant hesitates before shaking his head. Phil sighs. Progress is slow still, it seems.

"Was it because of Thomas?" He aims to get the answer even still. He remembers seeing bruises on the child's neck, in the shape of hands. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Grant hesitates again. Phil knows he's hit the jackpot. That six year old is evil.

"Was someone hurting him?" Phil asks next. Tentatively, Grant nods. "Was it your mother?" A shake of the head. "Christian?" Another shake of the head. "So your father." Grant nods again. "Was he strangling Thomas?" Phil knows those bruises have to be because of strangulation. Grant pauses for a long while before he nods, a small jerky movement.

"So you tried to help Thomas?" Phil knows he's treading in dangerous territory. Grant's eyes shut down, and Phil realises he's pushing too hard. "Fine, you don't have to answer that." He says hastily.

 _Thank you._ Grant writes faintly. He pauses. _Sometimes, my mother would lock me in the cupboard._ Phil blinks at the words written so clearly on the paper. He knows that Grant's distracting him from the murders with other information, but Phil is deeply shocked by the distraction. This onion of a family keeps unravelling, getting more and more disturbing with each layer. What family behaves like this?

A messed up one, that's what.

 _If May or I had messed up – she's put us there. Most of the time, we'd be hungry._ Grant prints more shocking truths underneath. _She wouldn't let us out for days sometimes._

"Grant. What else did she do to you?" Phil is totally disgusted by this woman at this moment. He's seen some things in his service to SHIELD, and he's not going to say that this is the most disturbing, because it's not, but it's certainly one of the most horrific things he's _heard_ off. He thought he'd heard it all, but clearly not.

 _She'd slap me._ Grant seems more and more reluctant to keep writing. Maybe he's ashamed of admitting what happened to him – and Phil just wants to hug him. This poor boy. If he'd gotten there earlier, could he have saved him? Perhaps. But Phil still thinks he can save Grant Ward. The boy's eleven; Phil can still turn his life around.

Phil slowly learns over the next hour of the kind of emotional and physical abuse Valerie Ward put her two eldest sons through. By the end, Phil is still disgusted, but also angry. He's been watching the Wards for six months now: how didn't he see this? It was right under his nose this whole time, and instead, he left Grant to suffer. He could have prevented Grant learning what killing someone feels like, if only he hadn't been so damn _blind_.

Phil doesn't realise that he's just punched the table until he hears Grant's feet step away. When he glances up, he sees fear flickering in the brown depths. Shit. The boy thinks he's mad at him.

"Grant, I'm not angry at you." Phil starts, going to approach him. He's stopped by Grant taking another sizable step back. "Okay, I'll stay here." Phil reassures him. "But I'm sorry. I'm not angry at you – but at what you've had to go through. I shouldn't have let that anger through though."

Grant still looks unconvinced. He holds up the pad of paper and taps the words, _you believe me?_ again.

"Yes." Phil says gently. "I believe you Grant, and I'm so sorry you've had to go through this."

 _I don't want your pity!_ Grant scribbles down angrily.

"It's not pity, Grant!" Phil tells the boy. "It's…" He searches for the word. "It's just anger. No-one should have to go through what you have, but I don't pity you. I'm amazed that you're still here, after all you've dealt with. Other people would have crumbled long ago. You're strong."

Grant takes a hesitant step forward.

 _You think I'm strong?_ Grant writes. Phil nods, breathing shallowly.

"You're strong, Grant." He repeats. "No matter what your family have told you over the years, you are strong." Grant starts to write, and it takes a few minutes until Phil can see the response.

 _Do you think I'm a victim?_ There's a strange look to Grant's eyes as he shows him the paragraph he's written. _Do you think I'm the one who needed to be protected? The one who will suffer? I'm a murderer. I killed my parents not even a day ago, and you're making excuses for me! I robbed my brothers of their family!_

"Grant, you can't think like that!" Phil says passionately. "You are not a victim. _You are a survivor_."

 _I'm a murderer_ _._ Grant writes again, underlining it harshly.

"Then tell me what happened. If you murdered them." Phil is baiting the boy. But it seems to work, as Grant begins scribbling anew.

 _I killed my parents. I murdered them. I shot my father and I beat my mother._ So follows sentence after sentence of self-hate. One sentence, near the end, catches Phil's eye in particular. _Even though they deserved it._

Those words echo through Phil's head, and he can't help a shiver at how dark and twisted they are. Grant Ward is an instrument of his family's hate and desperation for money. He's been used, deprived of a normal childhood. He's been left in silence, ignored and abused, and Phil is thankful that the at least found him now. If it had been any longer that Grant was left in that toxic house… who knows what could have become of him. He could have become a serial killer!

"Grant, I'm not going to leave you." Phil promises once more. "You don't need to feel this way anymore. You're safe here with me."

 _Am I?_ Grant questions, his eyes massive. Although physically, Grant is eleven, Phil knows he'll need as much comfort as a younger child needs. Mentally, Grant is a total different age.

"Yes." Phil nods, keeping eye contact. "I will never hurt you, Grant. You will never be hurt here. Your brothers or anyone else: they'll never be able to get to you here."

 _But I killed my parents._ Hope drains from those words.

"Tell me how. Tell me why. I will help you." Phil knows in that moment that he must do anything in his power to help Grant. Even if that means pulling in a few favours with Fury, he's going to show Grant what a normal life feels like. But in order to save Grant, he needs to know what he's saving the kid from. "Please. Just tell me."

Grant stares at Phil for what seems like eternity. And then Grant finally steps back to the table, and turns a fresh page.

He takes a deep breath, and then his words spill forth once more.

* * *

 _His parents are going to kill him._

 _Grant knows this as he holds his stinging cheek. They're going at it like wild animals, screaming, yelling, shouting. He pushes himself under the table, hiding just as his mother chucks something, and the glass cabinet next to him breaks with a shatter. Grant instinctively covers himself, hiding himself more. May is over the other side of the room, keeping down like the coward he is. It's May's fault that this is even happening. It's always May's fault._

" _Mommy! Daddy!" Thomas howls. Grant clutches at his ears, hating the reedy sound of his younger brother's voice. He's a demon in disguise, Grant knows. A manipulative demon._

 _Thomas meets his eyes as he howls. Grant closes his eyes to avoid those eyes, those eyes that can make him do anything._

" _Our children are animals!" His father roars. "They try to kill each other every other day, while you disappear down a bottle, Valerie!"_

" _And while you disappear into some slut's embrace!" His mother is shrill. "This isn't my fault, Christian. It's yours!"_

" _Mine? Mine? You're the one who had these shits!" His father laughs. Grant tucks his legs up on himself, rocking himself slowly. All the noise is exploding across his ears, and he doesn't like the sound. Thomas's wailing mixes in with his parents arguing._

 _That's when his eyes find the gun. The rifle, which is in the cabinet for some reason. It's always loaded – Grant thinks it's from his father's old hunting days._

 _His eyes widen._

" _Daddy!" Thomas screams as he leaps at his father, trying to shake sense into him. Thomas is chucked to the floor, and he screams in pain._

" _Christian! That's our son!" His mother yells. She's tossed across the room for her cheek. Tonight, she's not the only drunk among the Wards._

 _His father's hand closes around Thomas's throat. Grant gives May a second or two for him to act. May doesn't move an inch, so it's up to Grant._

 _Grant grabs the gun. Something powerful fills him even as he trembles, pointing the weapon at his father, who laughs._

 _Can he do this? Shoot his father? Kill him? Grant doesn't know what he's doing. He's not in control of himself- no. This will give him control._

" _-Fucking coward!" Grant shoots his father midway through a sentence. He doesn't stop squeezing the trigger, ignoring the pain from the recoil as he keeps pressing the trigger. His father takes the bullets, and Grant doesn't care if he shoots Thomas now: with every bullet, Grant Ward feels more and more alive._

 _Eventually, he runs out of bullets. He stares at his father's body._

 _Grant Ward is in control._

 _When killing his mother, he relies on his instinct. He reverts to anger, repeating the smashing movement over and over. He tunes out and screams, his arms aching as he keeps hitting and hitting, long after his mother's still moving. When he's done, his body heaves as he takes in the sight in front of him. His mother, dead. His father, dead._

 _Grant Ward no longer feels alive. He feels horrified. Blood is thick in the air, and it's choking him. He pushes the body of his mother away from him, his hands tightening on the rifle. He stays against the wall, the sounds of the hitting, of the shooting, echoing around and around and around._

 _He's a monster._

 _A monster._

 _Monster._

 _Because only a monster would do what he's just done. He's just killed his parents. He's just_ killed _his_ parents.

 _Grant closes his eyes. He tries not to think about what he can smell in the air, what he can feel on his skin. He tries to ignore the panic, the fear. Instead, he tries to freeze everything down. He can't feel right now. He'll be consumed._

 _Silence is in the air. He hates it._

* * *

Phil raises his eyes from the starkly written words on the paper in front of him, his skin ashen. Grant stares down at his hands, and Phil swallows, the noise loud in the silence of the room.

At the end, Grant has written a short question.

 _Do you still think I should be saved?_

Phil stares at each word, seeing the deep imprints of each letter. The question echoes around his head like a rollercoaster, never stopping.

 _Do I still think that Grant should be saved?_

* * *

 **Eight Months Later**

"You did great in there, Grant." Phil grins at the now twelve year old walking along next to him. Grinning probably isn't the proper reaction right now, considering what they've just done.

"I did?" Grant's voice is still only a whisper. He doesn't talk much, although Phil thinks it's great that he talks at all. Surprisingly, the person he talks to the most is Skye. Despite their age gap, the two get along nicely, with Skye having already declared that Grant will be marrying her when they're older. It's a cute declaration: Melinda doesn't believe that it will ever happen, but personally, Phil has faith in the idea.

"Yep." Phil nods. Today was Grant's hearing, about whether he should serve anytime over his parents' murders. With Fury's help, Phil had managed to convince them that Grant shouldn't go to prison. Instead, it was logged as self-defense.

"Now, you never have to think about those people anymore." Phil tells him. Grant's brothers, Christian Maynard Ward junior and Thomas Ward, had been placed with two different foster families, but Phil himself had taken on the task of looking after Grant, with a lot of help from Melinda, who was used to this sort of thing. Consequently, Grant had gotten used to Melinda, despite her surname being 'May', especially since Phil had to leave him with her sometimes for missions. Surprisingly, Grant had started calling Melinda 'May', reshaping what that word meant for him.

Phil sometimes thinks back to that day, eight months ago. He'd decided that Grant deserved to be saved. If you got to someone early enough, you could save them. That's what he believed then, and it's what he still believes now.

"Grant!" Skye yells as they see her waiting by the car. She taps her watch impatiently. "Hurry up! Mom said we can have ice cream!"

Grant smiles faintly and crosses over to her. A small smile appears on Phil's lips. He's not regretted his decision yet, and he doubts he ever will in the future.

It all started with a gun. But it all ended with a second chance.

* * *

 **(Sorry if I got any of the crime system wrong - I'm not from America, so I really just winged it. It felt a little weird just using 'Band-Aid', but I like to try to use some American terminology like the names of medical supplies when writing about characters in America).**

 **(I'm also sorry about the whole shooting thing. I have no idea how many rounds a rifle has, so forgive me if I over or under exaggerated the shooting)**

 **And I just had to put Skye in here! Natasha, by the way, is obviously, is Natasha, a.k.a. the Black Widow from _Avengers._ I couldn't help but picture her as Skye's older sister.**

 **Oh, I've just rambled on in my notes, haven't I! Leave me a review below? :)**


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